I haven't written a blog for a while, but I have been writing emails so if you're not signed up you have been missing out. Go do it here!

You may think it's a strange title for a blog in February, but i purposely didn't write this until now, because February is when about 90% of people's New Years Resolutions have failed. By starting in February you instantly increase your chance of success. Clever I know, I even amaze myself sometimes!

Another thing I don't like about the New Year is the whole new you thing. I don't want a new me and you shouldn't want a new you either, there is nothing wrong with the current me (or you). Rather than trying to get a new you, you should just work to make the current you better.

First you need to decide what you want to improve and put them in order of importance. The first thing I want to improve this year is the amount of quality time I spend with Joanne and the kids. To do this I need to be more organised and manage my time better, so I've written myself a plan of how I'm going to manage my days so I have dedicated times for things like work, training, cooking, answering emails, writing blogs etc. Sometimes things come up and my day doesn't go exactly as scheduled, but overall it's working better.

Another thing I want to improve is my deadlift, so i went out and got some coaching from a top deadlifter. Getting advice from professionals is a great way to improve yourself and it will give you the confidence to know what you are doing is right. No matter how good you are there will always be somebody that you can learn from.

Choose a goal + get some advice + have a plan = Success!

How do you want to improve yourself this year?

If you want to lose fat, then focus on your diet.If you want to look better, then it's diet and exercise.Improve you health, it's diet and exercise again.

I shared my favourite piece of dietary advice with my email subscribers last week. It's simple and straight to the point:

Eat like an adult. Stop eating fast food, stop eating kidscereal, knock it off with all the sweets and comfort foodswhenever your favourite show is not on when you want it on,ease up on the snacking and don't act like you don't know this -eat more fruit and vegetables.Really, how difficult is this? Stop with the whining. Stop withthe excuses. Act like an adult and stop eating like youlive in a television commercial.Grow up.​ - Dan John

I'm going to add to this this week and say; if you want to lose weight then a good guide is to eat at least 100g of protein and keep your carbohydrates under 100g. This is a good general guide and most people won't go too far wrong following it.

As for exercise; pick up heavy things from the floor, press heavy things overhead and go for brisk walks. This is true for everybody regardless of their goals.

If you want more specific advice then shoot me an email and I'll see what I can do.

It was good, I quite like Jamie Oliver, he's trying to do good things.

The program covered some interesting topics about sugar. The most shocking thing was that in some parts of Mexico it is cheaper to buy Coca-Cola than water! Coca-Cola is a common thing in Mexico, a part of religious offerings and there was even a breastfeeding baby chugging down a full bottle of it! To try and combat this the Mexican government has put a tax on sugary drinks, something that Mr Oliver thinks we should have over here. Whilst this may be a good idea there a few major floors.

Firstly, I would be willing to bet that there are a great deal of people that wont be put off by a price increase and some may be willing to sacrifice the quality of other food in order to fix their sugary drink craving.

In the program Jamie was trying to encourage restaurateurs to put their own tax on fizzy drinks like he does in his restaurants, but again I don't think this will help. How many times a week do people eat at a top restaurant like Jamie Oliver's? It's not a daily occurrence and probably not even a weekly event for most people, so I can't see the benefit. This is something that food companies will definitely not do, unless it is made a law, and why should they? I used to think that food companies were the devil, filling food full of sugar and chemicals to make us fat and sick, but then I realised this wasn't the case at all. Food companies are no different to most other companies, in that their purpose is to sell their product and make money. By law they have to list their ingredients on packaging, so nobody is being deceived (except for Nestle's antics in Zimbabwe and the third world, but you'd better not get me started on that).

Food companies cannot take the blame for obesity and diabetes, you don't see people complaining at Peugeot for stopping people walking as much or Black and Decker for making DIY easier causing us to move less. So why should we try blame Coca-Cola for making us sick?

It is time we took responsibility for ourselves, we have full control over what we food /drink we put in our and our childrens mouth. Sugary, processed food may be well advertised, placed eye level on supermarket aisles and at the checkouts, but you have still got to take it from the shelf, put it in your trolley, pay for it, take it home, unwrap it and eat it! There are a lot of conscious actions you have to make before that food ends up in your mouth.

So why do so many people still eat and drink things we are told are so bad for us?

The Mexican government use some of the money from the tax collected to educate people about healthy eating, which sounds great and something we should do.This just creates another problem though. Do you remember the 'Eat Well Plate' I showed you in my last blog? These are the foods the government recommend we eat. If you look at it again you will see a big red can labelled 'cola' near the center. I'm not joking, go take a look. So even if the taxed money was used for education, people would still think it is ok to drink a can of coke a day, because that is what we are being told.

The only person that is truly looking out for your health is you (and me obviously), food companies make far too much money for the government for them to turn round say you can't sell coke or Fanta anymore it's killing people. Don't wait for somebody else to make changes to how you eat, you need to do it yourself.

For thousands of years we thrived on meat, fish and vegetables, the last 150 years have seen our health deteriorate as our sugar consumption increases. What we should be eating really isn't rocket science.

It has been a busy news week for nutrition this week. You may have heard things about needing to cut down our sugar to 5% and increase our fibre to 30g a day. This is because a report was issued by the Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition. The report started 7 years ago at the request of the Department of Health and was kindly funded by us the UK tax payers. Zoe Harcombe has done an excellent job of going through the study, which you can read Here, which I highly recommend you do, especially the Conflicts of interest among the panel members. There are 2 things from the report I wanted to pick up on though. The first is about total dietary carbohydrate. The report states that "total carb intake appears to be neither detrimental nor beneficial to cardio-metabolic health (heart disease and diabetes)". So they cant say whether carbohydrates are good or bad for health, which begs the question; What have you been doing for the last 7 years?The second is on the fibre love in that seems to be happening. The report recommends that daily fibre intake should be increased from 18g to 30g, but their own trials "indicate no effect of dietary fibre on cardiovascular or type 2 diabetes mellitus risk factors". So why do we need twice as much as we did a fortnight ago? I don't think I'd have an issue with doubling my fibre intake if there was a reason to, but the only thing the study found was that an increase in fibre "increased faecal mass". Wahoo, big poo's! You never hear this on the news or radio though do you? I can just imagine John Snow "In todays news the government recommends eating more fibre so you can do bigger poo's".At this point I'd like to say rant over and move on, but unfortunately I'm just moving on to another rant. This time it's about the governments pathetic attempt to help the obesity epidemic by making pub and restaurant chains have the calories on their menu's. How is this supposed to help exactly? Nearly every food in supermarkets have nutrition information on them. Has this helped obesity? No, so why would knowing the calories of your weekly pub lunch help? How often do people eat out anyway? The majority of people I know say once or twice a week if that and I'm willing to bet that what they're eating the other 90% of the time is doing their weight loss more harm than burger and chips on a Saturday afternoon.I think it's time the government did something a bit more effective to help people with their weight loss and it should start with the "Eat Well Plate"

1) Take sugary cereals off the Carbohydrate section. Feeding children or adults 25g of sugar first thing in a morning is a sure fire way to shoot their blood sugar up and start storing fat.2) Take sugar laden fruit yoghurts off the plate3) This is the simplest one. Remove all the cakes, biscuits and chocolates. These do not form part of a healthy diet and shouldn't be eaten every day regardless of if you are trying to lose weight or not.I don't think anybody could argue with these three changes, they're just common sense. So why are we being told it is ok to eat these foods on a daily basis?It is time something purposeful was done about obesity and knowing the calories of your pub lunch and doing big poo's just isn't enough.

Whilst I was away in London this weekend, I caught a short program on why people should eat less meat and more plant based foods. I have no issue with vegetarian diets, my lovely partner and children are all vegetarians and if done well a meat free diet can be extremely healthy.However some of the points brought up in this program annoyed me slightly, because they were very misleading.One point that kept being repeated was that a plant based diet is lower in fat. It was said in such a way that we should just accept that that is a good thing, but nobody seemed to want to expand and tell us why it was a good thing. We know that fat doesn't make us fat, and for the last 60 years they have been trying to prove saturated fat causes heart disease, but so far despite billions of dollars of investment they haven't managed to prove a link. So what's the issue with fat?One lady said how meat was high in saturated fat, but if you look at the breakdown of fats in a steak you will see only about 15% of it is saturated, with the majority coming from the heart healthy monounsaturated fat. So again I struggle to see the issue.Cancer was another topic that came up. This is quite an interesting one, because there have been a number of epidemiological studies (these are studies where people get asked to fill in a questionnaire about their diet and lifestyle, and are followed over a number of years to see what diseases they get and what they die from. It is a good way to find correlations, but it does not prove anything.) done that have shown that processed meat and red meat is linked to cancer. The problem is that very few of the studies differentiate between processed meat and red meat. They just bundle them together as if they are the same thing, which they are not. Red eat comes straight from the animal and is totally unadulterated when you buy it. Processed meat has chemicals added to preserve its shelf life and stop it going off. Now which do you think might cause cancer? The animals we have thrived on for thousands of years or bacon and salami that has been pumped full of nitrates?Some vegetarians have diets that are mainly plant based, with nuts, tofu, eggs, dairy, lentils and pulses, which like I said can be very healthy, but others pack their diet full of crappy, processed fast foods like Quorn. Quorn is predominately made up of Mycoprotein, which is a fungus that is fermented and has glucose and nitrates added. Sounds pretty similar to the processed meat that's giving us cancer doesn't it? They also add vitamins and minerals, because if they didn't they would be nutritionally void! Oh and I forgot to mention that it needs to be heat treated to remove harmful levels of Ribonucleic Acid. Lovely.Know I don't think eating a vege sausage will kill you, just like a rasher of bacon wont, but these are not the healthiest options and the majority of your diet whether you are an omnivore or vegetarian should come from natural, unadulterated foods.And as for Mo Farah advertising Quorn, well he should just stick to jogging and listening out for that doorbell!

There is an interesting story circulating the news this week about the lack of physical activity in schools, and I wholeheartedly agree.Up to the age of four, most children are constantly moving around and playing, which is great and exactly how they should be. Parents are then forced to send their children to school, where they are made to sit in chairs and stare at books for hours on end. Not only does this reduce their fitness, it also reduces there ability to move correctly and increases there risk of obesity, diabetes and other health related illnesses.

If you watch a three old playing with bricks on the floor, chances are they will be squatting down with their bums on their heels happily entertained for twenty minutes before they jump up and start drawing on the walls. If you ask a seven year old to do the same thing, they probably can't even get into that position any more. All that sitting they're required to do at school has caused tight hips and poor mobility.

Schools should include movement in nearly every lesson. If you're studying plants, wildlife or the environment, don't sit in chairs and search Google or read text book, get out in the world, look, learn and experience hands on. The same can be done with science or history, and ball games and sports could be used to teach maths and problem solving.

It shouldn't only be structured sports that get our children moving about. I understand that some children don't like competitive games, but there are thousands of ways to make movement fun and educational. Movement should be the norm, and sitting in chairs should be something that needs to be done occasionally.I have quite a strong view on this, and I've spoken to Joanne before about how I feel there should be physical tests that children need to be able to pass before they leave high school. Some of these would need to be modified if a child has certain medical issues, but I firmly believe that every child should be able to achieve the following at the age of 16:Males:400m run - It doesn't have to be completed within a certain time, but it has to be a constant run or jog. Not a walk.1 minute plank in the press up position3 Pull upsFemales:400m run - It doesn't have to be completed within a certain time, but it has to be a constant run or jog. Not a walk.1 minute plank in the press up position10 seconds hanging off a pull up barYou may think this is a bit extreme, but if this was in the curriculum, it would be something that is practiced regularly and it's inclusion would drastically reduce childhood obesity and make exercise and movement a normal part of every day life. You wouldn't even have to train specifically to achieve these test. Children have vice like grips. If you tell a three year old to hold onto a monkey bar, then you let go, they won't fall. They'll be able to hold on for a good few seconds before you need to grab them. So have some monkey bars in schools and say "go play", without any coaching you they will achieve one of the goals. If a child plays football, rugby, netball 2 or 3 times a week, then they can jog 400m. These standards are not ridiculous by any means and are achievable if physical activity was a more important part of our childrens education.

Apologies for my two week absence, I have been overloaded with swings and unicylces, and struggled to get everything in. I decided I wanted to learn the unicycle a couple of weeks ago, not entirely sure why, but is has been fun. I managed about 8 yards unassisted yesterday, which I was quite pleased with. I enjoy learning new skills and having a challenge.We set a challenge for ourselves at the kettlebell class last week, to do 10,000 swings each in one month, and it's going well. Everybody is ahead of schedule and most people are enjoying it, there are a few exceptions, but I think deep down they're having fun.Challenges like this are a great way to push yourself and take you out of your comfort zone. It is too easy to plod along with your exercise, following the same programme for too long and not testing yourself both physically and mentally. I often see challenges like this flying around Facebook, but the exercises they use are not ideal and can often be detrimental. As we age (and I class anybody over 28 as aging, sorry), certain muscles get tight, whilst others get weak and an ideal training program should stretch the tightening muscles and strengthen the weakening ones. Challenges with press ups and squats and going to tighten already tight muscles (the ones we should be stretching) and leave the weak muscles to get weaker. This is why the kettlebell swing is an excellent choice because your glutes (bum) and abs tend to weaken as we age and that is exactly what the swing strengthens. It is also one of the best exercises to increase your fitness and melt fat. It's a one stop shop for less fat, a better bum and firmer abs, who doesn't want that?Now I wouldn't recommend picking up a kettlebell for the first time to start a 10,000 swing challenge. That isn't going to end well, you're going to need to take a few months to learn the exercise and build your fitness.If you're near Todmorden, you should come to our class 6:30pm on Wednesdays at the High School, it is suitable for all abilities, even if you have never seen a kettlebell before and we always have fun.

High Intensity Interval Training or HIIT for short is a form of cardio training that involves repeated short bursts of a high intensity exercise followed by a short rest. One example is going all out on a rowing machine for 30 seconds, resting for thirty seconds and repeat for 10 - 20 minutes. Studies have consistently shown this style of training to be more beneficial for fat loss and fitness than your typical steady state cardio like jogging for an hour. It is also more time effective and in my opinion more fun.

HIIT has been gaining popularity over the last few years and for good reason, but like with anything that gains popularity, it inevitably gets butchered, usually by people trying to make money.

In my classes we usually do 15 or 20 minutes of high intensity work at the end, because that is all you need, but last week I saw a gym advertising a 60 minute HIIT class. To me this just sounded ridiculous, because there is no way you can do high intensity (90%+ of maximum heart rate) for longer than 20 minutes. You simply cannot maintain that level of intensity because your body wont be able to produce energy quickly enough to enable you to keep going without thing getting messy and risking injury.

With my clients and in classes we always end our high intensity work just before we need to. This allows for better recovery and more frequent training. It would be counterproductive to beat somebody into the ground if it meant they took a week to recover. Doing slightly less work, recovering properly and training 2-3 times a week is a lot more effective than 1 body breaking session.

I wanted to prove that you cannot maintain HIIT for longer than 20 minutes without risking injury. Now I could have tested it on myself, but thankfully I have guinea pigs who are willing to do this sort of thing for me. I'd like to introduce you to Vanessa. Vanessa has been training with us for a good while, she is very fit (fitter than me), she's got some determination and likes a challenge, so was the perfect candidate to test my theory. We first needed to work out 90% of her maximum heart rate, which is (220 - her age) x 0.9. I wont tell you what her age, because it's pretty old and I don't think she'd appreciate it. For the exercise to be counted as high intensity her heart rate needed to be between 90 and 100% during the work sets so I rigged her up to a heart rate monitor.Kettlebell snatches are an excellent exercise for this type of training so we began with those and decided to do 30 seconds work, 30 seconds rest with a 12kg kettlebell.

After a short 3 minute warm up we started the test. Vanessa had to go all out with the snatches for 30 seconds, then put the kettlebell down rest for thirty seconds and repeat for as long as she could. After 16 minutes she had kept her heart rate in the 90-100% range, but her hands started to to get sore. Grip strength is usually the limiting factor with snatches because you are holding onto a lot of weight. Normally this is where the session would finish, but as she was still standing we decided to change the exercise to Hill Climbers and keep the test going. The hill climbers weren't as effective as snatches, but her heart rate was still above 90%, so it was still high intensity. Much to my dismay the 20 minute mark approached and Vanessa was still going strong, which made me wrong and I hate that, but it seemed to please her.

At 22 minutes however, things started to slow down and she struggled to complete the 30 seconds, the next set was the same. The last 7 or 8 seconds of hill climbers became slow and laboured, it was time to end the test at 23.5 minutes.

Although I was wrong by 3.5 minutes, we (the royal we) did show that there is no way you can maintain high intensity intervals for an hour.

HIIT is a great way to train and everybody (except those with a heart condition) should be doing it. Some people think it is only for people who are really fit like Vanessa, but it isn't. It's just that an untrained individuals "high intensity" might be step ups or star jumps rather than snatches and that is fine as long as you find it hard. Aim for 10 - 20 minutes 2-3 times per week, add in some brisk walks throughout the week and that is all the cardio you need.

People have a tendency to label foods as either good or bad. The low fat advocates will tell you fat is bad and the low carb posse will tell you carbohydratess are bad, but that is too much of a generalisation. We need to look at the specifics of each macronutrient (carbohydrates, fats and protein) to make an educated decision.

Today we're going to focus on carbohydrates.

Most people think of carbohydrates as bread, pasta and rice, but they include more than this and are divided into 3 catagories: sugar, starch and fiber.

Sugars are either monosaccharides (mono = one, saccharide = sugar) like glucose or fructose found in fruit, or disaccharides (di = two, saccharide = sugar) like sucrose, table sugar.Starches are polysaccharides (poly = many), which simply means there are lots of sugar molecules bound together, these are found in potatoes, bread, rice etc. You'll notice that starches are just sugar molecules bound together.

The less molecules a carbohydrate has, the quicker it is broken down to use as fuel. If you were in the Great Manchester Run this weekend, you would find a banana or sugary drink useful around the the 7k point to give you some easily digested energy to help you finish the race. If you were sat at home watching the Britain's Got Talent repeat, chances are that same banana would have just been stored as fat. Carbohydrates are used to create energy for the body to be used for movement. The quicker a carbohydrate is broken down the sooner it is available to use, but if you don't use it, it will get stored as fat with the intention of being used at a later date. As you can see banana's aren't bad, in some situations they are a good choice, but in others not so much.

If you're not doing prolonged physical activity you have little need for fast acting sugars, so you want to stick to starches and limit sugar intake. How much you need will depend on how much movement you do throughout the day. Most people will use 200 to 300 calories a day moving around (this would increase if you went to the gym or did any type of exercise), so if you weren't trying to lose fat, your carbohydrate intake should match that. If you are trying to lose some body fat, then you want to eat less carbohydrates than you need. This will force your body to breakdown your stored fat in order to fuel your activity. This can be done by either increasing your activity levels or decreasing your carbohydrate intake, or ideally a bit of both. Starches are the best option as they are released slower, so are less likely to get stored as fat and they will fill you up for longer, because they take more time to break down.

As you can see sugar and starches aren't bad and the only thing that makes one better than the other is the situation you are in. Eat your carbohydrates wisely and make sure the amount you eat matches your goals.

The third type of carbohydrate Fiber is strings of sugars, like starches, except that the bonds between the sugars cannot be broken down for energy. Fibre is found in most vegetables and is generally good for your health, but some fiber is better than others. The fiber found in vegetables and tubers (potatoes, sweet potatoes etc) are fermentable (I'm not convinced fermatable is a word, but I'm going with it), whereas the fibre found in whole grains aren't, as much.

Fermentable fiber is important for the health of our gut. We have beneficial bacteria in our gut that uses fiber for food. These beneficial bacterias are pretty useful for detoxifying harmful compounds in our food and water, they are also crucial for an effective immune system and can help prevent diabetes and other autoimmune diseases. So we want to keep these guys happy and well fed, grains won't do it, so make sure you get your fiber from fruits and veg.

Hopefully this clears up the confusion about carbohydrates. Carbohydrates aren't bad, you just need to choose the right types in the correct amounts.

Variety is the spice of life, or so they say, but it may also be the reason you aren't getting the results you want.

Everybody likes variety especially when it comes to food, a new flavour to get your taste buds tingling, but this is one of the main reasons people overeat. The first few mouthfuls of any food are always the best, that is why we can always make room for dessert even after a large meal, but it is not just sweet things we can overeat on. If you go to a buffet with a large selection of savoury foods there is a good chance you will eat more than you need, because you want to taste all the nice food, even if it is just a few mouthfuls.

I love mixed grills and some restaurants offer some huge mixed grills, served on great big platters, but I have never failed to finish one. All the different flavours from the beef, lamb, sausage, chicken, egg and if I'm lucky black pudding keep me going back until my plate is clean. Obviously these are not bad foods to be eating, but 2000 calories in one sitting will be more than I need (depending on what else I have eaten that day). If you gave me the equivalent calories in scrambled egg, another food I love, I wouldn't eat nearly as much, because I would stop when I was full, there wouldn't be any new flavour to tempt my taste buds and keep me coming back for more.

If you only ate chicken liver, sardines, eggs, sunflower seeds and kale I guarantee you would lose fat, and a decent amount of it. These 5 foods provide all the essential fats, proteins, vitamins and minerals you need, so you would be perfectly healthy eating just these foods (I'd love to take credit for working this out, but unfortunately I can't. It was a clever lady called Zoe Harcombe who did the work).

Lose lots of fat, be perfectly healthy. What's stopping you?

Boredom! After 4 weeks if you're a resilient person, but more than likely less than 2, you will be bored to death of those 5 foods and you wont be able to stick to it. However you could use a certain lack of variety to your advantage and still be able to stick to it.

Keeping things simple and a little bit boring for a few weeks could really help kick start your weight loss or get you through a plateau. If your plate just has one meat and two veg, no sauces or anything fancy, for one it is easy to monitor how much you are eating and for two the lack of new tastes will help you to stop when you are full. Have the same meal for lunch and tea each day, for a few weeks. You can eat as much as you like, but only those foods. Have variety throughout the week to make sure you are getting everything you need, but during the course of one day only eat the same 4 or 5 foods.

Wednesday: Lunch - Homemade burgers with kale, Tea - Homemade burgers with fried mushrooms and tinned tomatoesRemember it is not just calories that count, the balance of calories is just as, if not more important. We discussed that a few week ago here, but this is a sure fire way to stop you overeating.

On the whole I am not a fan of supplements, you can get all that you need from a well balanced diet, however there are a few exceptions.

Vitamin DThis is the main supplement that you should add to your diet, because of changes in climate I don't believe it is possible to get the amount of vitamin D we need anymore. I tell my kids it's the sunshine vitamin, because that is where we get most of it from, it is found in small quantities in some foods like fish and egg yolks, but you can't get what you need from diet alone. It is also produced by the body in response to the skin being exposed to sunlight. The problem is that we don't spend as much time outdoors as we should and we are a lot more clothed than nature ever intended, which reduces the amount of sunlight we get.

Vitamin D deficiency has quite sever health implications. Calcium requires vitamin D to be used effectively, so an insufficient amount can lead to weak bones and osteoporosis and it is also associated with a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, asthma and cancer.

Thankfully there is a vitamin D supplement you can take and its fairly inexpensive, just make sure that it is vitamin D3 not D2, as D3 is the type that is produced by the body in response to sun.I take 4000iU and give the kids half of of that.

MagnesiumMagnesium is probably the second (after vit D) vitamin/mineral we are most deficient in and is important for lots of things such as, nerve and muscle function, immune system, strong bones and also helps regulate your blood sugar. Again it is something that we don't get enough of because of modern lifestyle. We used to get enough from the food we ate, but because of mass farming the quality of the soil fruit and veg is grown in has decreased and it no longer contains the high level of vitamins and minerals it used to.

Deficiency can lead to a whole host of health problems such as nerve problems, osteoporosis, depressions, blood clots, diabetes, heart/kidney/liver disease and panic attacks.

You can supplement it in two ways, as a tablet or as liquid or flakes that you can add to baths or yourself after a shower. Personally I use the liquid form two to three times a week. It feels a little tingly at first due to the concentrated dose, but you'll find this goes away quickly.

Omega 3Omega 3 is an essentially fat (meaning it has to come from our diet) that we get from food such as beef, fish, some nuts and seeds. Deficiency is strongly linked to heart disease, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes, osteoporosis and depression.

Due to quality of our food, most people do not get as much as they need. You probably know that oily fish such as salmon, tuna and mackerel is high in Omega 3, but you may not know that this is only true if the fish is wild caught. This is because of the fishes diet. In the wild, fish get there omega 3 from the food chain. Algae, high in omega 3 are eaten by krill, krill are eaten by small fish and small fish are eaten by larger fish, so the omega 3 is passed on. This doesn't happen in fish farms because of the processed food they eat, so they have almost no useable omega 3. The same is true for beef. Beef should be quite high in Omega 3, but because most of your meat found in supermarkets and butchers has been fed on an unnatural diet of grains, it has changed the fats contained within the meat. Grass fed beef contains twice the amount of omega 3 than your standard grain fed cow.

It isn't necessary to supplement omega 3 if all your beef is grass fed and all your fish is wild caught, but the cost of eating like this will be a big barrier for people, because it is not cheap. It's also not going to be possible if you are vegetarian, so I would recommend supplementing with 4000mg a day from either fish oil/capsules or flax oil.

Vegetarians are also going to struggle to get enough iron and vitamin B from their diet, which us herbivores get from our meat, so they would be well advised to use a supplement like Flovital. 20ml for adults and 10ml for kids will provide what you are missing.

Apart from these three (four if your a vege) things you should be able to get everything else from a well balanced diet, high in quality vegetables, meat, eggs, nuts and seeds. Just remember that quality is the key word here. Eat as much organic veg, grass fed beef and wild caught fish as you can afford, you will be healthier for it.